On November 6th, China Economic Network reported that on November 3rd, the Xiaopeng Automotive App released "Instructions on Upgrading the Urban NGP Functions of the Xiaopeng P5" in response to the recent incident of thousands of Xiaopeng P5 car owners releasing joint credit rights protection.
Xiaopeng stated in the "Description" that the urban NGP of Xiaopeng P5 is a city intelligent driving assistance function that relies heavily on high-precision map technology. The opening of this function is influenced by many factors, and not only requires a long research and development process of collection, production, verification, and multiple tests to improve the reliability and safety of use, but also requires the approval of urban map information according to regulations, making it difficult to achieve rapid coverage of different cities.
It is reported that Xiaopeng Motors has launched this feature in five cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Foshan, but it cannot meet the needs of car owners in other regions, which is also a key issue reported by the thousands of Xiaopeng P5 car owners mentioned above.
On October 29th, five days after the "1024 Technology Day" of Xiaopeng, a joint letter from 256 Xiaopeng P5 car owners was circulated online. The letter mentioned that on October 24th, Xiaopeng announced that XNGP (Xiaopeng's second-generation assisted driving system, including urban NGP and other functions) will support automatic assisted driving in 25 to 50 cities within the year, while P5, as the first city NGP, will not receive any support.
The car owners stated in the letter that when Xiaopeng released the P5 in September 2021, it claimed that the P-version of the car supported urban NGP and would open up cities nationwide in the future. But currently, the vehicle only supports NGP on some major roads in five cities, which is completely inadequate to meet the needs of cities across the country.
Meanwhile, Xiaopeng's latest next-generation intelligent cockpit system, XOS Tianji, supports all horizontal screen car models such as P7, G6, G9, and X9, but does not include G3 and P5 car models. The official explanation provided by Xiaopeng is that 'because P5 is a vertical version, it does not support adaptation'. However, car owners cannot accept it, believing that the vertical version decision of P5 was made by Xiaopeng and should not be unfairly treated as a result; At the same time, the old P7 equipped with 820 chips supports upgrades, while the P5 equipped with 8155 chips cannot be upgraded, and car owners also express their incomprehension. As of November 2nd, the number of Xiaopeng P5 car owners participating in the joint letter has increased from 256 to 1122.
In response to the demands of car owners, Xiaopeng announced in the "Explanation" that as of 16:00 on November 3, 2023, for current car owners who have obtained the XPILOT3.5 intelligent driving assistance software, Xiaopeng will launch a 20000 yuan intelligent driving voucher entitlement. The scope of application of the rights and interests includes: purchasing Xiaopeng G6, P7i, G9, and X9 models equipped with the XNGP intelligent driving assistance system, which can be used for the first purchase, additional purchase, or exchange purchase. The rights and interests can be used by the car owner's designated buyer.
In addition, for the P5 model Xiaopeng, OTA will continue and gradually launch functions such as smart scene, steering assistance, sentry mode optimization, map optimization, NetEase Cloud music access, and instrument display lyrics in 2024.
In the car owner's message below the "Instructions", some people ask when the voucher will arrive, some people resell related rights, and some car owners ask how to upgrade the city's NGP. When a reporter from China Economic Network checked related topics on Weibo, he found that netizens also had mixed reactions to this. Some people believe that "compared to other car companies, Xiaopeng is very kind", but others also say that "as expected, it is unlikely to promise to upgrade with navigation assistance, other upgrades are just small things".
Another analysis suggests that "in reality, the P5 model and car owners are unable to enjoy the experience upgrade of Xiaopeng's overall intelligent cockpit iteration. The 20000 yuan voucher is a helpless move, which reflects the biggest problem of Xiaopeng's products, which is the issue of product consistency. In addition, throwing the pot at high-precision maps is also inconsistent in words and deeds
